There's a new horror trend emerging that is taking average joe moviegoer a little bit of time to come to terms with. Recently, good filmmakers have done away with both jump scares and gore. Jump scares are the cheap way of getting a reaction out of an audience there to see a 'scary' movie. They are not so much scary, as they are manipulative. The 'jump scare' used to have a bit of tact to it. Early M. Night Shyamalan and currently James Wan are both big users of jump scares. However, their talent also lies in their writing. They are able to create such a dark and sinister atmosphere that the jump scares felt warranted instead of cheap. This, in turn, led to movies using the jump scare as a crutch. Recent films like The Forest and The Boy both employed this method and did terribly in the box office. Gore, on the other hand, is an even cheaper crutch because instead of trying to effectively scare the audience, it's trying to gross them the hell out. This is not scary. So, recently, filmmakers have started to do away with both and utilize a terrifying story about unseen entities and creepy situations. The biggest proponent of this was The Babadook, an underrated horror film that your standard teenage horror film fan was confused about. It didn't pop out and startle you, it slowly built up in order to creep you out the entire time. This is good horror. A highly-praised film, It Follows also used this method. It received a lot of attention and acclaim... though I have to say I didn't care for it. Yes, it was effectively creepy and tense, but by the end it felt like I had been pranked. So, this long-winded explanation leads me to explain why most "average" fans will probably not enjoy The Witch, even though it's one of the best horror films I've seen in the past few years.
The Witch is not a movie that uses gore (though there is some pretty messed up stuff that happens). It is not a movie that relies on jump scares to keep the audience interested (there are none). It's a slow burn of a film that takes advantage of its terrifying ambiance, its unbelievably creepy soundtrack, and its time period to scare the living shit out of anyone in the theater that is willing to sit back and understand that nothing is going to pop out from behind the trees. The Witch tells the story of a family of Puritans who have been, essentially, exiled from their village in London and moved toward the outskirts of the woods. They grow crops, they raise animals, and they speak of God often. However, almost immediately into the story the infant son of the family goes missing at the hands of a witch in the woods. The family starts to slowly break apart blaming God and asking for forgiveness for any number of ridiculous sins they may or may not have committed. This leads the patriarch and matriarch of the family to begin to separate emotionally as well as call into question the motivations of their eldest daughter, Thomasin. Little by little and slowly but surely the family breaks down, is picked off, and essentially lose their minds which leads to some very uncomfortable and dark scenes.
Now, if you weren't raised in a particularly strict Christian household the events depicted on screen may seem a bit strange. Every "bad" occurrence in the film is repented by the family immediately. Prayers and offerings to God are aplenty because this family's entire reason for existing is to serve the Lord and when things go awry, clearly God is angry. I imagine this is a pretty apt depiction of what it was like to grow up in Ted Cruz's house. But, along with trying to make you piss your shorts, the film does a pretty good examination of the folly that is Puritanical Christianity.
The story itself is a pretty good one and it's based off of records of witch trials from the time period, events that inevitably led to the Salem Witch Trials. However, it's not just the story that makes the movie so fascinating and terrifying. There's the acting; in particular, the patriarch, William, played by Ralph Ineson is fantastic. His low, deep, gruff voice will creep you out even if he's saying the most complimentary of things. The rest of the cast is great as well... the matriarch, Katherine's descent into madness is both difficult to watch, as well as infuriating. I think the thing, though, that makes the movie its own is the dialogue. They all speak in the Jacobean dialogue of the time. It's difficult, at moments, to pick up exactly what was said, but it all works to add to the unsettling nature of the film. Then, finally, there's the spine-chilling soundtrack mixed with the claustrophobic cinematography that makes The Witch frightening as hell.
Now, as much as I can build this up and as much as the film has been built up already... like I said earlier... it's not so much that 'scary' in terms of what the standard audience member is looking for. If you're a high school kid going on a date looking for your girl to leap into your arms or grab your junk that you're hiding in your bucket of popcorn, you're going to be sorely disappointed. This is a horror film for movie fans. If you can appreciate a terrifying ambiance and a chilling ride that keeps your heart beating fast for an entire film, rather than something popping out unexpectedly, then you'll enjoy it. If you're looking for a grotesque bloodbath, you also will be disappointed. But, if you want to sit in a theater and be severely unnerved for an hour and a half, I believe The Witch is the horror film for you.
B+
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